{"id":669,"date":"2018-10-10T19:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T19:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/?p=669"},"modified":"2018-10-10T19:31:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T19:31:01","slug":"semaphore-competition-theo-and-alena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/2018\/10\/10\/semaphore-competition-theo-and-alena\/","title":{"rendered":"Semaphore competition – Theo and Alena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Design and Process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to design a semaphore system that uses colors and shapes to code the meaning of the communicated text. Our decision was based on the knowledge that human eye tends to react to colors and shapes very quickly, which is why the traffic signs, for example, rely on the color and shape system as well. There is a well-thought and well-tested methodology behind the traffic signs system, as each sign communicates a message to the drivers and pedestrians. A message is supposed to be as clear as possible and the receiver is expected to comprehend and react upon the message as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nspeed and clarity of communication were some of the main parameters of the\nassignment, we decided to use the most clearly noticeable colors and shapes in\nour semaphore system. Firstly, we were trying to identify which colors are most\neasily distinguishable. For that reason, Theo consulted his colleague, Sarah\nFrampton, who is the Lead of Design and UX in NYUAD OSA department. She helped a\nnumber of colors and shapes that are most distinctly visible from a distance. So,\nhaving taken her advice into consideration, we decided to use 4 shapes\n(triangle, circle, square, and diamond) and 9 colors (red, yellow, green, blue,\nblack, pink, brown, turquoise, dark red). Sarah also recommended using bold\nblack borders to emphasize the shape and color, so we designed the shapes\naccordingly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwe printed a few shapes out, we realized that dark red looked very similar to\nred. Thus, we added a black circle to the middle of each red shape, making sure\nit is clearly visible from the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then,\nwe began to assign each symbol a letter. For that purpose, we researched the\nletter frequency in English alphabet. We wanted to use the most easily\ndistinguishable shapes and colors with the letters that are used most often.\nSo, for example, we assigned a yellow triangle to a letter E, which is the most\nfrequent letter in English alphabet (it appears in 12.7% cases). Conversely,\nthe least frequent x, q, and z were assigned to less distinguishable colors.\nAlso, we decided to give all numbers the same shape of diamonds, as we saw this\nshape as potentially confusing given its similarity with triangle and square,\nand we assumed that there will not be a lot of numbers in the sentence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lastly,\nwe assigned particular hand gestures to space, article \u201cand\u201d, \u201cthe\u201d. Besides,\nwe agreed on gestures that the receiver might need to use: one would mean \u201crepeat\nthe letter\u201d, and another one \u201crepeat the word\u201d. We also decided that the sender\nshould try to omit as many vowels as possible, assuming that a word can be\neasily comprehended without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In regard to the process of sending the message itself, we first thought about attaching printed symbols to a cardboard. Then, we thought about using clippers and attaching papers to the glass. Lastly, we decided that the sender would just take one paper by one and then show it to the reciever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outcome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthe tournament we realized that our system had a few disadvantages. Firstly,\ncommunication was not fast enough (it took the sender 5 minutes to send the\nmessage). The reason for slow speed was the following: we had a separate paper\nfor each symbol, and they were organized in different piles by color. So the\nprocess of searching for each symbol and then putting it back to the pile took\nlonger than expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly,\nthe receiver could not always distinguish between the blue and turquoise colors,\nwhich led to confusion with some of the letters. Thus, one word in the sentence\nwas not received correctly, which jeopardized the clarity of the message.\nHowever, omitting of vowels did work fine, as the receiver could comprehend the\nword \u201canniversary\u201d sent as \u201cannvrsry\u201d. Thus, the overall meaning of the\nsentence was clear, despite the second letter being understood incorrectly. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, if we could improve our system, we would think of a more efficient way to send a message \u2013 something that does not require every symbol to be on a separate paper, but can rather allow multiple symbols to be communited with the use of few objects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Design and Process We decided to design a semaphore system that uses colors and shapes to code the meaning of the communicated text. Our decision was based on the knowledge that human eye tends to react to colors and shapes very quickly, which is why the traffic signs, for example, rely on the color and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}